


Blood-covered Ring Pop

by JeromeSankara



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Animal Transformation, Bad Ending, Blood, Death, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickness, Suicide, dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 03:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10296581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeromeSankara/pseuds/JeromeSankara
Summary: Rick is being hunted. A disgusting monster is following his every move, mouth agape to swallow him whole at any moment. But Rick refuses to fight. Not anymore.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was an assignment to create a short Gothic story and this is what I had. It had a maximum of six pages which is why it's so short. May expand on it if people comment or give me ideas, please luv me

Blood speckled across the vivid and friendly bundles of green, only too happy to feed upon the liquid. Two shadows flocked through the trees, casting across bark that held the scars of many hunts before this one, and chances are that it will all end the same way.

One shadow stumbles, but manages to catch himself before the pursuing shadow can snap at the chance to reclaim its prey. A sliver of moonlight manages to catch the first form, giving light to the frost escaping his lips in ragged bursts. Blue eyes wild with fear as they darted back to the mass that followed him endlessly.

The light was lost to the beast, a running black hole breathing down his neck. Its breath felt much like lava pouring across his flesh time and time again, blasting across his exposed skin.

Blood dripped down his pale hand as he grasped tighter to his pistol, the silver now unclean within his grasp. Yet it was held down at his side, refusing to lift it even now when his life was at risk. He wouldn't, he couldn't.

But now he may have to. Fear flashed across his eyes, unable to look away from the beady black orbs that sought only his death, the eyes clouded over and sightless but apparently not hindering his hunt.

He should have watched where he was going, not staring at his impending doom.

The earth disappeared beneath his feet and the human figure had no choice but to plummet down nearly a dozen feet to the unforgiving frozen ground below. His scream was disrupted on impact, and the much larger black mass skid to a stop on the lip of the cliff. But it had no reason to fear, its prey was still alive... Even if a little more battered than he would have wished.

The human clutched his leg, an ankle twisted off in an awkward angle that certainly wasn't normal. He dragged himself along the ground, grunting and panting in obvious pain. Sweat mixed in with the blood still coated onto his body, his blue eyes searching wildly for a way out of this sudden trap. But there was a reason to it being so deep, the walls built up so high... He had fallen into one of their own traps. Ones meant to capture the monster that now pawed at the edge of the cliff, pacing rapidly around the hole.

His heart was hammering at this point, but his head managed to obtain a moment of clarity before his obvious death. His eyes latched down to his shoulder, to the trio of claw marks that raked down his shoulder so hard he wondered how he was still alive, as if he didn't already know. He couldn’t get it out of his head, though, that this monster… This monster had led him to this trap. It couldn’t have been a coincidence.

Only then did he look back up to the beast, staring into the cloudy eyes that had once been clear and blue, much like a still pond. He looked to the scars that were fading on the black, leathery skin, marking across the throat. A constant reminder. He swallowed hard, then looked to the side to the pistol that rested not too far. If he could just spook it away…

He lunged for his weapon, then opened the chamber. Two bullets. It wasn’t enough. He cursed softly as he clicked the chamber back into place, only to look back up. The beast was toying with him at this point, the three-toed paws churning in the dirt as if pretending it was his own flesh. Its jaws opened, and the rows of jagged, sharpened and uneven sets of teeth glistened with crimson that still dripped down its jaws. The large head tilted, as if listening for more movement from its prey if it was still putting up a fight.

Then came the rumble that barreled out of his throat, the sightless eyes locking onto him. No, this couldn’t be the end. Not after what they’ve done, how hard they’ve fought… They had everything… But now.

Time slowed down as the beast suddenly leaped, jaws wide, claws stretched for its kill. He stared into the eyes of the beast, clutched his weapon, and tried one last time to call to the man within the beast.

“Daryl! No, please, Daryl!”

\---

“Daryl! No, please, Daryl!”

A hand swatted out against the brunette that was bugging him once again, as if this was different from any other day. Snow sprayed across my body when my hand took the hit, only for me to burst out laughing. God, Daryl was such a child…

He was still standing there, smirking with a wadded up snowball within his naked hands. Blue eyes were practically laughing with mirth, and the smirk only grew larger. Snow was clinging to his long, unruly brown hair that was slightly shaggy, and I reminded myself that we needed to bring him back to the barber, no matter how much he begged and pleaded.

“Didn’t know you were such a pansy, Rick. Thought you could handle the snow by now.” The rural drawl in his voice was strangely pleasing to hear, especially when it was light and happy.

We shouldn’t be messing around. We weren’t children. We were supposed to be on guard, protecting the innocents within the walls of the city, but there hadn’t been anything interesting for weeks. The only thing was when Daryl had managed to shoot a bird straight out of the sky, only to land directly onto me. He swears he didn’t mean it, but his god damn smirk told me otherwise.

Daryl was everything to me. My friend, my companion, my partner, everything. And to see him smile was everything I hoped.

But it all came crashing down as the siren wailed, and the snowball fell from his hands. A chill ran up our spines as we looked to each other, only to scramble for our weapons. A sighting. A challenge. A fight that brought danger to both of us, but as long as we faced it together, nothing could stop us.

\---

“…Shit.”

It was the soft whisper that had wrenched open my soul, but I was too busy stabbing out the brain of the beast. My movements blurred with my tears, as I stabbed over and over and over again, to the point that blood was coating my arms. I didn’t make a sound, even when all I wanted to do was scream.

This wasn’t happening, this wasn’t allowed. Daryl wasn’t lying next to him in a pool of his own blood.  
There weren’t slashes on his body.

The beast didn’t touch him, didn’t wound him, didn’t surprise us…

But as I found myself stabbing into the earth beneath the bloodied pulp, my heart sank and my stomach turned into a ball of ice. I raked my eyes away from the beast to look to Daryl, who was numbly prodding at the wounds that lined his throat. He should be dead, I wished that he was dead… It would have been better if he died.

His blue eyes were surprisingly calm as he looked back at me, the blood slowing from the wounds as it began to piece itself back together again. He opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to change his mind as he looked at me, covered in blood that wasn’t my own, my hands gripping the knife so hard I thought I would break the grip. Tears were flooding down my face and I didn’t even try to stop them now.

Daryl…

That was when I realized he was reaching for my pistol, tossed aside after I had dealt the killing blow. I already knew what he was doing, what he planned to do. It was what we both agreed to when we signed up for this shitty job. But as he looked me in the eyes and raised the blood-splattered pistol… I couldn’t.

“Daryl, no!” I screeched so loud that birds took flight a mile away. I swatted the gun out of his hand, only for it to land several feet away on the still frozen ground. He looked back at me, visibly hurt as if I had just dealt the blow myself.

“Rick, I gotta. Don’t wanna be one of those,” his voice was soft as if he was soothing a child, which I had practically turned into at this point. But I refused to accept it.

“No, there has to be something! We’ll find a cure! You can fight it, I know you can!”

His gaze softened and my heart shattered as he gave me that god damn smirk. He has already given up at this point, and I probably should have to. But I refused to let Daryl die. Not this way.

\---

Our commander was suspicious when I said we were taking a leave of absence. I had wrapped up his wounds so tight that I nearly strangled him doing so, but we had to hide it. The first day was alright. We sat down on our bed, I cried some more, and he patted my back. We didn’t leave each other that night, or the next night. I spent every waking moment with Daryl, praying it wouldn’t be the last.

By the third night, the fever had set in. I’m surprised it took that long. The evening of that night, and he already couldn’t get out of bed. I’d try to nurse away his fever with an icy rag, pleaded with him to drink some water, but he refused. He was in pain, my Daryl was in pain. But I couldn’t let him leave me yet.

He was in and out the next few days. Sometimes he would perk up, get out of bed, even tried to cook me dinner. The damn man can’t cook worth sin but it gave me hope. It was hours later that I found him in the bathroom, twitching and seizing. He had only been there a couple minutes, but that was all it took.

The fever got worse, his seizing got worse, everything got worse. By the end of the week, I couldn’t sleep anymore. I just sat there, played with his hair, and talked to him. Talked when I knew he couldn’t hear me. I told him about my favorite memories, I talked about when he said he loved me the first time. I actually said it back for the first time in my life. I talked about announcing to our parents, which they were not exactly pleased with. They thought you were dangerous. But that day we picked out our rings. You had used a Ring Pop when you asked me to marry you, because it was so out of the blue. Still have it. Always have it with me in my pocket.

…The ring part that is. The sucker was long gone. It was blue, my favorite color. Like his eyes.

I talked about our honeymoon, about our adventures, about when we would fight and make up, fight and make up… But he still wouldn’t listen to me.

It wasn’t until the next day that he had begun to change, and I knew then that we had to leave. I took you out to the forest, to your favorite spot. I begged you not to go, but you still couldn’t hear me. You couldn’t see me anymore. Couldn’t recognize my voice. You were feral and twitchy, much like when I first met you, but you kept getting worse…

I had fallen asleep before you turned.

\---

 _Bang_.

  
The black body fell in a heap before the man, tears still within his eyes. He wondered just for a moment how he had managed to aim with his hands shaking the way they were. Then his mind went empty and blank, watching as the thick blood oozed out of the hole he had shot between the eyes. Between the cloudy, dull, putrid eyes that had once been Daryl’s loving gaze.

It could have been hours. Maybe days. But the man sat there soaked in his own blood, as if expecting the beast to rise again. It never did. It was dead, and so was Daryl. But Daryl had died long before this.

The man cried now and then, something he hadn’t seemed to stop doing this entire week. He pleaded with the beast, begged for it to release Daryl to him, but it gave no answer. He cursed it viciously but his words would always end in a sob.

The forest watched in quiet awe at the man as he finally became silent, his tears still falling but now unheard.

It was then that the man decided that he couldn’t abandon their oath. Till death do they part, but he refused to be parted for long.

Blood sprayed along the earth walls of the hole, and the gun fell with a thud that echoed the body. His hand remained outstretched, twitched for a moment, then stilled. On his hand was the blue Ring Pop ring, still with him to the end.


End file.
